ACTING PRESIDENT of Venezuela is coming to India for a five-day visit from June 3 to 7. The visit assumes significance as it comes five months after Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro was captured by the US forces on January 3, and Rodriguez, formerly Venezuela’s Vice-President, was appointed the country’s Acting President.
Announcing the visit, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, said Tuesday: “Acting President Rodriguez, who was earlier scheduled to visit India to participate in the International Big Cats Alliance summit on June 1 which has been deferred, will pay a working visit to India.”
It is important to note that the MEA identified Rodriguez as the “Acting President”, and not President of Venezuela — given the unusual transition of power after Maduro’s capture. Many countries, including Russia, have criticised the US action and called it “illegal”.
Rodriguez will be accompanied by several ministers, including the minister of foreign affairs, economy and finance, science and technology, communication and information and transportation.
She has visited India several times in the past in her capacity as the Foreign Minister of Venezuela in 2015, as also in her capacity as the country’s Vice-President in 2019, 2023, 2024 and 2025. “This will be her sixth visit to India. So, she has had a long association with us,” the MEA spokesperson said. During the visit, Acting President Rodriguez will hold bilateral discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On January 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriguez and the two leaders agreed to take the bilateral relations to new heights in the years ahead. The phone call from Rodriguez to Modi was the first since the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife by the United States in the first week of January. Energy was one of the topics covered in the leaders’ conversation.
“The discussions will involve the full spectrum of India-Venezuela relations and involve and explore revenues for further cooperation in the areas of energy, trade, investment, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, transportation and renewable energy,” the MEA spokesperson said.
India is an important partner of Venezuela in the areas of energy and investment. Indian public sector undertakings have made significant investment in Venezuela in the energy sector, and they are keen to explore more opportunities to further enhance their presence, the MEA spokesperson said.
India — specifically private sector refining giant Reliance Industries (RIL) — was a regular buyer of Venezuelan crude prior to the imposition of US sanctions on Caracas in 2019.
Following the sanctions, oil imports from Venezuela stopped within a few months. As per India’s official trade data, Caracas was New ’s fifth-largest supplier of oil in 2019, providing close to 16 million tonnes of crude to Indian refiners. The bilateral trade between India and Venezuela was $6.40 billion in 2019-20, of which Indian imports — primarily crude oil — were worth $6.06 billion.
In October 2023, the US eased sanctions on Venezuela’s petroleum sector, authorising oil exports without limitation for six months. This led to RIL and a few other Indian refiners restarting oil imports from the country. But imports stopped as the sanction waiver was not extended by Washington after its understanding with Caracas on the conduct of free and fair presidential elections in Venezuela broke down.
A few months later, RIL was able to restart Venezuelan oil imports after obtaining a sanctions waiver from the US. But in the summer of 2025, the company halted oil imports from Venezuela after the Trump administration threatened higher tariffs on countries buying Venezuelan crude.
Since February, after Maduro was captured and Rodriguez became the Acting President, India has resumed oil imports from Venezuela, especially after the war in West Asia has disrupted the energy supply passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
